Chapter 29 - Techno-economic and environmental impact analysis of biofuels produced from microalgal biomass

Abstract

An initiative has been taken globally to develop different biofuels as alternative energy sources. Recent findings and advanced developments in algal biomass for improved biofuel production is explored by targeting algal cell composition, various strategies for product formation through various conversion technologies, and its future scope as energy security. Apart from various potential benefits of algal biomass biofuels, there is still a widespread lack of public agreement on the near-term and long-term economic viability of biofuels as well as process engineering performance, due to uncertainties on process scale-up associated with the start-up difficulties of biorefineries. Techno-economic analysis (TEA) was employed as a tool to provide both quantitative and qualitative understanding of the impacts that a proposed technology may have on the financial viability of a conversion strategy, as well as better planning and evaluation of experimental investigations. The biofuel production process was simulated using different production approaches (different biomass sources, conversion methods, and recovery options). The present review is aimed at various biofuels produced from algal biomass, TEA, the economic feasibility of algal biofuels and bioproducts, and novel biofuels production processes using different process design strategies